The early period of British colonial rule witnessed a long and sharp debate between the Anglicist... more The early period of British colonial rule witnessed a long and sharp debate between the Anglicists and the Orientalists about the validity and utility of classical and indigenous systems of knowledge in the Indian subcontinent. The adoption of Macaulay’s minute by the East India Company in 1835 led to the ascendance of the Anglicists and the establishment of a colonial system of education with the goal of creating a new class of English-proficient petty public servants. This in time led to the displacement of vernacular systems of education based on classical and “folk” curricula derived from a plurality of educational traditions.
The paper aims to provide a decolonial critique of dominant global agendas concerning teacher pro... more The paper aims to provide a decolonial critique of dominant global agendas concerning teacher professionalism and to propose new understanding based on the perceptions of a sample of teachers based in Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Rwanda and Tanzania. The paper commences by setting out dominant conceptions of teacher professionalism as they appear in the global literature. The paper then uses Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2013) three dimensions of coloniality, namely, the coloniality of power, of knowledge and of being, as a framework for considering the colonial legacy on teacher professionalism and setting out the teachers’ ideas concerning the barriers and affordances to their professionalism. This provides a basis for outlining the teachers’ perspectives on how teacher professionalism may be conceptualised, which is discussed in relation to global conceptions. The main arguments advanced in the paper are that a decolonial lens is helpful for contextualising the perspectives of teachers in the...
This research investigates the impact of the pandemic on the education, livelihoods, and health o... more This research investigates the impact of the pandemic on the education, livelihoods, and health of the most marginalised sections of India’s society. Three major sites were chosen for this investigation: (a) Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) with respect to the livelihoods of informal workers; (b) Delhi with respect to teachers, parents, and children in the city’s schools; and (c) Bengaluru with respect to students and faculty of higher education institutions in the city. Narratives of teachers, children, and parents highlight how stakeholders from different socio-economic contexts across government and private schools and higher education institutions have been affected and the multiple challenges they experience as teaching-learning is disrupted. The study highlights how technologically mediated learning platforms, brought into effect due to the pandemic, continue to impact teaching and create pedagogic constraints for students from different socio-economic backgrounds. Narratives of infor...
Educating the public is central to governmental and NGO responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This ... more Educating the public is central to governmental and NGO responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This briefing paper of the Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures Network Plus addresses the following topics: What is Transformative Public Education? Why Transformative Public Education matters to the COVID-19 response Why Transformative Public Education matters for addressing long-term underlying risks to communities Examples of Transformative Public Education responses to COVID-19 Suggestions for governments and state welfare actors seeking to work with Transformative Public Education Suggestions for community leaders working with Transformative Public Education Transformative Public Education in times of physical distancing Key readings and resources
Saraswati, a 20-year old mother of two from rural Madhya Pradesh hopes that her children can fini... more Saraswati, a 20-year old mother of two from rural Madhya Pradesh hopes that her children can finish eight-years of schooling unlike her. Kishan Jatav a twelve-year old wanted to become a ‘space scientist’ like Abdul Kalam but had to drop out of school in Class VI to help his brother run a bicycle repair shop
Comparative and International Education: Survey of an Infinite Field, 2019
Several countries in South Asia face the challenge of ineffective educational reforms manifest in... more Several countries in South Asia face the challenge of ineffective educational reforms manifest in increasing rates of school failure and poor learning outcomes after embarking along education for all. Critical voices from the South have questioned the relevance and appropriateness of ideas that have shaped these reforms. Narratives from the region tell us that importation of educational concepts and policy orientations have led to the dismantling of existing structures and processes of education, creating new forms of inequities and disadvantage. The sheer scale and diversity of populations within the region poses formidable challenges and opportunities for contextual innovation. The construction of national imaginaries in the diverse societies of South Asia has the potential to provide new discourses to educational reform; going beyond the abstract goals set by disconnected international experts and the institutional processes they represent. This chapter deliberates on the need to establish a persuasive critical perspective that can influence and shape the trajectories of policy and practice, research and theorization, within the field of comparative education in South Asia, and the global south.
भारत सरकार ने कोविड-19 वायरस के संक्रमण को फैलने से रोकने के लिए मार्च 2020 के तीसरे हफ्ते में पू... more भारत सरकार ने कोविड-19 वायरस के संक्रमण को फैलने से रोकने के लिए मार्च 2020 के तीसरे हफ्ते में पूरे देश में अचानक और सख्त लॉकडाउन लागू कर दिया था। इस फैसले को जिस तरह लागू किया गया, उससे भारतीय शिक्षा व्यवस्था और शहरी सामाजिक सुरक्षा तंत्र की कमियां व कमज़ोरी खुलकर सामने आ गयी हैं। लॉकडाउन के फलस्वरूप देश भर के स्कूल व उच्च शिक्षा संस्थान बंद कर दिये गये और शहरों व कस्बों की तमाम आर्थिक गतिविधियां पलक झपकते ठप पड़ गयीं। इससे विद्यार्थियों और शहरी अनौपचारिक अर्थव्यवस्था में काम करने वाले करोड़ों मज़दूरों पर बहुत गहरा असर पड़ा है।
The paper highlights some of the key concerns across the sectors of school, higher and teacher ed... more The paper highlights some of the key concerns across the sectors of school, higher and teacher education. A few potential research themes that can help problematise the issues raised have been identified. An emphasis is laid on the need to build on practice-based repositories of knowledge, curricular framing and pedagogic strategies. Examining the contours of and potential for ESD includes: addressing questions of environmental, social, economic and epistemic justice in school and higher education contexts; exploring linkages between ESD and climate change education, education on sustainable cities and communities and identifying novel methods of wider public engagement and social education.
How young people experience classroom practice is directly linked to the teaching-learning experi... more How young people experience classroom practice is directly linked to the teaching-learning experiences they encounter. This enables them to make meaning of the social realities around them. Situated in India‟s stratified and exclusionary society, teaching-learning environments tend to reproduce existing hierarchies. This is strengthened by conventional epistemological frames that often militate against the aims of humanistic education and Indian Constitutional values. Hence, the teaching-learning process is central to developing a critical citizenship and democratic disposition. Dewey (1900) viewed schools as miniature societies that could enable the cultivation of a democratic social order. This in turn is intimately linked to how teachers are prepared.
Many contemporary societies are experiencing a convergence between forces of economic globalisati... more Many contemporary societies are experiencing a convergence between forces of economic globalisation and conservative ideologies that threaten to capture the educational space. Several countries are faced with the challenge of ineffective reforms apparent in increasing rates of school failure and poor learning outcomes. Never before have there been such striking similarities in the dilemmas and challenges faced by societies across the world in the field of education. Underlying these striking similarities are the unique trajectories that diverse countries have taken in their struggle to provide equitable education and preserve systems of democracy. As comparative educators, we need to take cognizance of these unique trajectories while engaging deeper with the postcolonial response to the challenges of failed reforms in education and development. Foremost among these concerns is the need to unravel the intimate, yet deeply challenged, relationship between education and society in a gl...
The international education project that drives neoliberal reforms is entwined with ideas of mode... more The international education project that drives neoliberal reforms is entwined with ideas of modernity and development embedded in coloniality. Instead of learning from decolonized and subaltern knowledges, what we see is a disruption of diverse post-colonial processes via a reform policy transfer – constructed in decontextualized abstraction, rationalized by a target driven universal agenda. This paper draws attention to a possible continuity between colonialism – viewed not just as a geopolitical reality located in the past but an organised epistemological order – and the neoliberal agenda of internationalising education. Control over knowledge production and practices have characterised processes of colonisation that used education to subjugate people of the colonised world. It is suggested that a ‘coloniality’1 characterised by patterns of power “constituted in culture, inter-subjective relations and knowledge production” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013, p. 30) has striking similarities ...
Educational reform measures adopted in India since early liberalization led to systemic changes i... more Educational reform measures adopted in India since early liberalization led to systemic changes in the provisioning and practice of school and teacher education. Despite judicial intervention, the state withdrew from the responsibility of developing institutional capacity to prepare teachers, leading to a de facto public policy that undermines the potential role of teachers and their education in achieving equitable, quality education. The policy narrative constructed around quality and knowledge created the logic of marginalizing the teacher, undermining the teacher’s agency and the need for epistemic engagement. Commitment to the Constitution-led policy frame was gradually subverted by a polity committed to privatizing education and a bureaucracy committed to incrementalism and suboptimal solutions to the several challenges of universalizing quality education. A discourse constructed around teachers, their education, and practice led to narrowing curriculum to a disconnected set o...
The early period of British colonial rule witnessed a long and sharp debate between the Anglicist... more The early period of British colonial rule witnessed a long and sharp debate between the Anglicists and the Orientalists about the validity and utility of classical and indigenous systems of knowledge in the Indian subcontinent. The adoption of Macaulay’s minute by the East India Company in 1835 led to the ascendance of the Anglicists and the establishment of a colonial system of education with the goal of creating a new class of English-proficient petty public servants. This in time led to the displacement of vernacular systems of education based on classical and “folk” curricula derived from a plurality of educational traditions.
The paper aims to provide a decolonial critique of dominant global agendas concerning teacher pro... more The paper aims to provide a decolonial critique of dominant global agendas concerning teacher professionalism and to propose new understanding based on the perceptions of a sample of teachers based in Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Rwanda and Tanzania. The paper commences by setting out dominant conceptions of teacher professionalism as they appear in the global literature. The paper then uses Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2013) three dimensions of coloniality, namely, the coloniality of power, of knowledge and of being, as a framework for considering the colonial legacy on teacher professionalism and setting out the teachers’ ideas concerning the barriers and affordances to their professionalism. This provides a basis for outlining the teachers’ perspectives on how teacher professionalism may be conceptualised, which is discussed in relation to global conceptions. The main arguments advanced in the paper are that a decolonial lens is helpful for contextualising the perspectives of teachers in the...
This research investigates the impact of the pandemic on the education, livelihoods, and health o... more This research investigates the impact of the pandemic on the education, livelihoods, and health of the most marginalised sections of India’s society. Three major sites were chosen for this investigation: (a) Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) with respect to the livelihoods of informal workers; (b) Delhi with respect to teachers, parents, and children in the city’s schools; and (c) Bengaluru with respect to students and faculty of higher education institutions in the city. Narratives of teachers, children, and parents highlight how stakeholders from different socio-economic contexts across government and private schools and higher education institutions have been affected and the multiple challenges they experience as teaching-learning is disrupted. The study highlights how technologically mediated learning platforms, brought into effect due to the pandemic, continue to impact teaching and create pedagogic constraints for students from different socio-economic backgrounds. Narratives of infor...
Educating the public is central to governmental and NGO responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This ... more Educating the public is central to governmental and NGO responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This briefing paper of the Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures Network Plus addresses the following topics: What is Transformative Public Education? Why Transformative Public Education matters to the COVID-19 response Why Transformative Public Education matters for addressing long-term underlying risks to communities Examples of Transformative Public Education responses to COVID-19 Suggestions for governments and state welfare actors seeking to work with Transformative Public Education Suggestions for community leaders working with Transformative Public Education Transformative Public Education in times of physical distancing Key readings and resources
Saraswati, a 20-year old mother of two from rural Madhya Pradesh hopes that her children can fini... more Saraswati, a 20-year old mother of two from rural Madhya Pradesh hopes that her children can finish eight-years of schooling unlike her. Kishan Jatav a twelve-year old wanted to become a ‘space scientist’ like Abdul Kalam but had to drop out of school in Class VI to help his brother run a bicycle repair shop
Comparative and International Education: Survey of an Infinite Field, 2019
Several countries in South Asia face the challenge of ineffective educational reforms manifest in... more Several countries in South Asia face the challenge of ineffective educational reforms manifest in increasing rates of school failure and poor learning outcomes after embarking along education for all. Critical voices from the South have questioned the relevance and appropriateness of ideas that have shaped these reforms. Narratives from the region tell us that importation of educational concepts and policy orientations have led to the dismantling of existing structures and processes of education, creating new forms of inequities and disadvantage. The sheer scale and diversity of populations within the region poses formidable challenges and opportunities for contextual innovation. The construction of national imaginaries in the diverse societies of South Asia has the potential to provide new discourses to educational reform; going beyond the abstract goals set by disconnected international experts and the institutional processes they represent. This chapter deliberates on the need to establish a persuasive critical perspective that can influence and shape the trajectories of policy and practice, research and theorization, within the field of comparative education in South Asia, and the global south.
भारत सरकार ने कोविड-19 वायरस के संक्रमण को फैलने से रोकने के लिए मार्च 2020 के तीसरे हफ्ते में पू... more भारत सरकार ने कोविड-19 वायरस के संक्रमण को फैलने से रोकने के लिए मार्च 2020 के तीसरे हफ्ते में पूरे देश में अचानक और सख्त लॉकडाउन लागू कर दिया था। इस फैसले को जिस तरह लागू किया गया, उससे भारतीय शिक्षा व्यवस्था और शहरी सामाजिक सुरक्षा तंत्र की कमियां व कमज़ोरी खुलकर सामने आ गयी हैं। लॉकडाउन के फलस्वरूप देश भर के स्कूल व उच्च शिक्षा संस्थान बंद कर दिये गये और शहरों व कस्बों की तमाम आर्थिक गतिविधियां पलक झपकते ठप पड़ गयीं। इससे विद्यार्थियों और शहरी अनौपचारिक अर्थव्यवस्था में काम करने वाले करोड़ों मज़दूरों पर बहुत गहरा असर पड़ा है।
The paper highlights some of the key concerns across the sectors of school, higher and teacher ed... more The paper highlights some of the key concerns across the sectors of school, higher and teacher education. A few potential research themes that can help problematise the issues raised have been identified. An emphasis is laid on the need to build on practice-based repositories of knowledge, curricular framing and pedagogic strategies. Examining the contours of and potential for ESD includes: addressing questions of environmental, social, economic and epistemic justice in school and higher education contexts; exploring linkages between ESD and climate change education, education on sustainable cities and communities and identifying novel methods of wider public engagement and social education.
How young people experience classroom practice is directly linked to the teaching-learning experi... more How young people experience classroom practice is directly linked to the teaching-learning experiences they encounter. This enables them to make meaning of the social realities around them. Situated in India‟s stratified and exclusionary society, teaching-learning environments tend to reproduce existing hierarchies. This is strengthened by conventional epistemological frames that often militate against the aims of humanistic education and Indian Constitutional values. Hence, the teaching-learning process is central to developing a critical citizenship and democratic disposition. Dewey (1900) viewed schools as miniature societies that could enable the cultivation of a democratic social order. This in turn is intimately linked to how teachers are prepared.
Many contemporary societies are experiencing a convergence between forces of economic globalisati... more Many contemporary societies are experiencing a convergence between forces of economic globalisation and conservative ideologies that threaten to capture the educational space. Several countries are faced with the challenge of ineffective reforms apparent in increasing rates of school failure and poor learning outcomes. Never before have there been such striking similarities in the dilemmas and challenges faced by societies across the world in the field of education. Underlying these striking similarities are the unique trajectories that diverse countries have taken in their struggle to provide equitable education and preserve systems of democracy. As comparative educators, we need to take cognizance of these unique trajectories while engaging deeper with the postcolonial response to the challenges of failed reforms in education and development. Foremost among these concerns is the need to unravel the intimate, yet deeply challenged, relationship between education and society in a gl...
The international education project that drives neoliberal reforms is entwined with ideas of mode... more The international education project that drives neoliberal reforms is entwined with ideas of modernity and development embedded in coloniality. Instead of learning from decolonized and subaltern knowledges, what we see is a disruption of diverse post-colonial processes via a reform policy transfer – constructed in decontextualized abstraction, rationalized by a target driven universal agenda. This paper draws attention to a possible continuity between colonialism – viewed not just as a geopolitical reality located in the past but an organised epistemological order – and the neoliberal agenda of internationalising education. Control over knowledge production and practices have characterised processes of colonisation that used education to subjugate people of the colonised world. It is suggested that a ‘coloniality’1 characterised by patterns of power “constituted in culture, inter-subjective relations and knowledge production” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2013, p. 30) has striking similarities ...
Educational reform measures adopted in India since early liberalization led to systemic changes i... more Educational reform measures adopted in India since early liberalization led to systemic changes in the provisioning and practice of school and teacher education. Despite judicial intervention, the state withdrew from the responsibility of developing institutional capacity to prepare teachers, leading to a de facto public policy that undermines the potential role of teachers and their education in achieving equitable, quality education. The policy narrative constructed around quality and knowledge created the logic of marginalizing the teacher, undermining the teacher’s agency and the need for epistemic engagement. Commitment to the Constitution-led policy frame was gradually subverted by a polity committed to privatizing education and a bureaucracy committed to incrementalism and suboptimal solutions to the several challenges of universalizing quality education. A discourse constructed around teachers, their education, and practice led to narrowing curriculum to a disconnected set o...
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